


Not a Word Yet

by FrenchKey, JayofOlympus



Series: Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019 [11]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Clint Barton Has Issues, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Emotional Baggage, Emotions, First Meetings, Gen, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, No one is actually murdered, Phil Coulson Has the Patience of a Saint, Phil Coulson Is a Good Bro, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, references to murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24759199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchKey/pseuds/FrenchKey, https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayofOlympus/pseuds/JayofOlympus
Summary: His fist came up, and she wasn’t fast enough to dodge the strike to the side of her head, though he missed her temple. She rolled off of him and shot a swift kick at his ribs, winding him. When he curled inward, his arms pulling down to protect his torso, she caught a flash of red on his skin and froze, a bolt of terror flashing through her.Bringing her hand up, she saw a purple blotch covering her palm, the shape matching the red on his forearm exactly.Natasha marks Clint while she's fighting for her life. Three months later, she can't understand why everyone thinks they're sleeping together.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton & Phil Coulson, Phil Coulson & Natasha Romanov
Series: Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706140
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52
Collections: Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019





	Not a Word Yet

**Author's Note:**

> Our fill for Square N5 - 'Shut up with all that soulmate shit' of the Ladies of Marvel Bingo. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Title is from the Jim Henson quote 'There's not a word yet for old friends who have just met'.

She would not let this American stop her. She had a mission to complete. Not the one her masters had given her, but the one she had dreamed of for many long years. Her most important mission. This American was in her way, and so she would kill him.

He dodged her knife, though she felt the tip catch the fabric of his tactical vest. He was well trained, whoever he was. His gear lacked any identifying marks, and she knew there were many organisations, and individuals, who wanted her head.

He clipped her hip with a kick, and she hissed. She spun around, using the momentum and lunged again. Again, he dodged, striking out with a fist as she passed. They traded blows. She caught his shoulder with her knife, ripping the sleeve of his vest so that it flapped in the wind. He disengaged long enough to rip it free. She wasn’t interested in giving him the space to retreat though. He was going to prevent her from completing her mission and he had to die. She ran forward and grabbed his exposed arm, wrenching it back and using his own bodyweight to topple them to the concrete.

His fist came up, and she wasn’t fast enough to dodge the strike to the side of her head, though he missed her temple. She rolled off of him and shot a swift kick at his ribs, winding him. When he curled inward, his arms pulling down to protect his torso, she caught a flash of red on his skin and froze, a bolt of terror flashing through her.

Bringing her hand up, she saw a purple blotch covering her palm, the shape matching the red on his forearm exactly.

‘Fuck,’ he spat, finally dragging in a breath in the long seconds she had frozen for. Had he not been winded, she likely would have been dead as soon as she’d hesitated. She was never that stupid in a fight. She should kill him while he was distracted. She _had to_. The mark didn’t matter. It wasn’t relevant. She needed to reach for her knife and drive it into his eye and forget about this whole sorry mess. 

‘Hey, so, I, uh, don’t actually want to kill you,’ the American said, making no move to hit her again. She was surprised enough that she listened. He got to his knees carefully, but did not stand. Either he was genuine, or he was confident that he could stop her from killing him if she tried. ‘I mean, I was told I should, but then my boss gave me a weird look, and I never know what he’s thinking, but he said to trust my instincts, so I’m tryin’ to do that. I don’t wanna kill you. I really hope you don’t wanna kill me, or this is gonna be real awkward.’

She watched him raise a hand placatingly. His eye caught the colour seared onto his arm, and he gasped, taking his attention off her for the first time.

‘Well, fuck,’ he said, staring at it. ‘That’s… shit. Wow, this whole thing’s a mess. Um… My name’s Clint? I feel like an introduction is probably warranted now. Hi?’

‘Natasha,’ she said, quite without meaning to. Her head was spinning. This was the weirdest assassination attempt she’d ever been part of, and she’d been part of quite a few. Admittedly, she was usually on the other end of it, but it certainly wasn’t the _first_ time someone had tried to kill her. It wasn’t even the first time one of her _soulmates_ had tried to kill her. 

‘Hi, Natasha, nice to meet you. Um… is it just me or is this fucking awkward?’ Clint asked. He was breathing heavily from the fight and probably a little from the shock, Natahsa thought. Sweat was beading along his hairline. She decided to throw him a bit of a lifeline. After all, she could always kill him later if she needed to.

‘Who sent you after me?’ she asked.

Clint seemed to consider it, which at least meant he was decently intelligent. ‘I’m with an organisation called SHIELD,’ he said after a moment, meeting her stare evenly. ‘And right now, I’m really hoping that this whole situation ends with me still alive, and employed. You’re running from the Red Room, right?’

She refused to react to that. Either he had been tracking her for a very long time, or he was smarter than she’d thought. Smart enough to have figured out what she was doing here.

‘Look, if you’re running, I can help you,’ he said, still on his knees. She wondered who exactly this man was, to be working with an organisation such as SHIELD. He’d been more competent than she’d expected from someone who looked barely old enough to be shaving, and he hadn’t made the fight easy, but then he’d seemed like a babbling child when he opened his mouth. Now he was offering his help, as though SHIELD wouldn’t have them both killed now that he had failed his mission. She knew what they did to their enemies.

‘You are an idiot,’ she told him. ‘Now they will still kill me, and kill you as well.’

‘Why would they kill me?’ Clint looked genuinely confused. She hadn’t thought it was possible to work in espionage and be this painfully naive. 

‘SHIELD kills its enemies,’ she explained, as patiently as she could. ‘I am an enemy. You are speaking to me. You are, apparently, soulmated to me. Now you are also an enemy. They will kill me, and then they will kill you.’

He shook his head, and she felt the urge to scream in frustration. ‘No, if this goes well, they’re gonna love me. Or, well, some people will. Probably,’ he said. ‘If it goes bad, yeah, I’m probably fired. Like, super fired.’ He stopped to think for a moment, then winced. ‘I mean, worst case, I could end up in prison? That’s a thing that could realistically happen here. But like, they can’t just kill me for talking to you. Especially not with this.’ He brandished her mark as though it would actually mean something to his superiors.

‘You are very naive,’ she told him, her lips curling into a sneer.

‘No, but that’s the point!’ he cried. ‘I’m _not_. There’s not a lot that I trust, but I know my handler, at the very least, would raise hell if SHIELD tried to kill me for this. I’m the best sniper they have. They can’t afford to lose me. And now I’m trying to offer you a chance with them,’ he said, looking very grave as he stood and offered her his hand.

She took a moment to catalogue every detail about him, sure that she would find some sign of a lie, or even a sliver of doubt in his words, but there was none. He was truly convinced that he was so indispensable that SHIELD would overlook such an infraction as this. She supposed there were worse ways to die.

She took his hand.

* * *

Three months later, she still wasn’t dead. Neither was Clint. She had almost managed to stop being surprised about it. SHIELD wasn’t perfect. She was still distrusted by many, pushed too hard by handlers that couldn’t see past her infamy and stared at by others who only saw the purple mark on her palm. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than anything she’d dared to hope for, back in Russia. 

Clint had stuck around once they had made it through debrief. Hers had been much _much_ longer than his, but she had done her best to be honest and helpful. After she’d finally been set free, with a single guard disguised as a ‘guide’, he’d been waiting for her with a lopsided smirk and a bag of pastries.

They had been assigned to train together while her abilities were assessed. Clint claimed it was SHIELD tradition that the person responsible for an unusual recruit was also responsible for integrating them. Agent Coulson phrased it slightly differently. 

Clint never failed to bring snacks or treats of some variety to their training sessions. He had once brought Twinkies with him, and a dark haired woman had teased him about it, though she hadn’t stuck around long, and Natasha had only seen her in passing since.

Most of the gossip stemmed from their marks, and Natasha had heard whispers about others having thought that Clint was defective until seeing the marks. They spoke as though she had cured some great ill by marking him. It was disconcerting.

His mark on her was obvious, a bright, bold thing, hard to hide without gloves. The placement was awkward for concealer, although she used it sometimes for missions. Clint’s was high enough on his arm that a decent pair of sleeves would hide it. He never seemed overly bothered though. When she confronted him about it he just said that he didn’t like wearing sleeves, but she got the impression that that wasn’t the whole story. She didn’t know if she’d cover hers if she could, and the not knowing bothered her.

It all came to a head one day in the mess. They’d finished a training session and gone down together for lunch. Clint had been laughing and joking with her, but had disappeared with his food to flirt with the pretty blonde agent he had his eye on. Natasha had grabbed them a table, knowing he’d be back. Agent Morse wasn’t nearly as interested as Clint seemed to think she was. 

‘If I had a soulmate as hot as that, I’d keep him on a shorter leash,’ one of the science techs whispered to her friend as Natasha passed. The two of them giggled, sharp and grating. She grit her teeth, forcing herself to ignore them.

She had no claim to Clint just because they’d left their colours on each other. And Clint had certainly never shown an interest in laying any further claim on her either. In fact, he always seemed very twitchy when their status as soulmates was brought up. She felt the same.

Clint was a good friend, and he was conventionally attractive, in spite of the scars, and the obvious way his nose had been broken several times. He was kind and respectful, and would make a logical partner. It was just that the thought of being with him in that way made her stomach roil with something closer to disgust than excitement.

The stares and whispers and pointed comments had gotten harder and harder to ignore as the weeks wore on though. A crowd of new recruits swaggered in and took the table behind her, pushing and shoving and swearing at each other. Clint reappeared a few minutes later, grinning widely and seeming not to mind that he’d been shot down again. 

‘Hey, Brad, isn’t that…?’ a male voice whispered behind her. 

‘It’s Hawkeye,’ another one replied, sounding a little bit giddy. Natasha wondered if they’d feel the same hero worship after a week sharing a tiny safehouse without running water with Clint. She certainly hadn’t.

‘I assume Agent Morse told you to get lost, again,’ Nat said as Clint slid into the chair across from her. ‘Your tenacious attitude will stop being cute, or amusing, very soon. Perhaps it’s time to let it go?’

Clint shrugged, still grinning. ‘We’re cool, she knows I’m just messin’ around, and I know she’s got too much class for my carnie ass,’ he laughed.

There were more whispers behind her, and someone suppressed a snort. Natasha took a deep breath through her nose.

‘I have a meeting with Coulson this afternoon,’ she said, ignoring them. ‘He told me that you are welcome to join us, but your attendance is not required, if you want to keep bothering Morse.’

‘Hmm… what’s likely to be more interesting?’ he asked.

‘Well, our meeting is to go over the next section of materials for my Level 3 exam,’ she replied, ‘And I know how much you love studying…’

‘Yeah, the Black fucking Widow,’ one of the recruits hissed, just loud enough to be heard.

A round of laughter. ‘Nah, he’s fucking the Black Widow,’ one of them chortled, ‘Gotta be, they’re fucking soulmates, right?’

Natasha wasn’t even aware of standing up. Suddenly she had the recruit against the wall by the throat, his eyes wide and surprised. ‘Shut _up_ with all that soulmate shit,’ she hissed and dropped him in a heap on the floor.

‘I second that sentiment,’ Clint said, deadpan. ‘Anyway, I figure I should probably be hittin’ the books too,’ he said, continuing their conversation as though there had been no interruption. ‘Coulson keeps talking about getting me fluent in Portuguese, and I’m starting to think he’s serious.’

‘I’m very serious, Agent Barton,’ Coulson said, having, apparently, walked into the mess hall in time to witness the incident. Natasha saw Clint cringe, though she was sure that no one else would have noticed.

‘Well, guess I’d better join y’all then,’ Clint said breezily, feigning indifference.

Coulson motioned for the two of them to follow him, and they all strode out of the now-silent mess hall, Clint making sure to pick up his sandwich as he went. None of them spoke until they were in Coulson’s office with the door firmly closed behind them.

‘So,’ Coulson said, leaning back in his chair and pinching his nose, ‘which one of you would like to explain what just happened?’

Clint took an obnoxiously large bite of his sandwich and chewed, looking like a chipmunk. Natasha couldn’t help but think he was almost as adorable, if in a slightly squishy way. It was probably a good thing, or she’d have punched him long ago.

‘They were implying things about my relationship with Barton,’ she said, frowning. She didn’t particularly want to elaborate further. Surely Coulson could put the evidence together himself?

Coulson nodded. ‘You’ve never been overly concerned with rumours before,’ he noted. It wasn’t entirely true. She paid very close attention to rumours; they were vital for finding ways to manipulate people, not to mention their use in controlling people’s perceptions of others. It was more accurate to say that she’d never particularly _cared_ about rumours before.

‘I thought it pertinent to set the record straight,’ she said, her face carefully blank.

‘You’re uncomfortable with people thinking that the two of you are romantically linked,’ Coulson said, looking between the two of them. ‘Is that correct?’

‘Fuck off with your psychoanalysing bullshit,’ Clint muttered, taking another pointed bite of his sandwich.

‘I would love to, but if you’re going to go around punching other agents, I need to know why,’ Coulson said, sighing.

‘I don’t want to fuck him,’ Natasha blurted, surprising all of them. ‘And I _didn’t_ punch another agent. I choked a recruit.’

Clint wrinkled his nose, ‘No, yeah, I don’t wanna fuck you either,’ he said through his mouthful of sandwich. Natasha couldn’t believe she was friends with this idiot.

‘Ok, so we cleared that up,’ Coulson said, dry as dust and clearly trying not to laugh at them. ‘I would assume, given the way you’ve been after Agent Morse, Barton, that you don’t want to date each other either?’

‘Eww,’ Clint whined.

‘I’m flattered, Clint, truly,’ Natasha said, glaring at him, ‘But, it is an accurate summation of my feelings as well.’

‘You’re like my sister, Nat. You don’t date your sister. That’s some weird Game of Thrones bullshit.’

‘Good, we all understand each other,’ Coulson said. ‘Where is the problem? Surely this isn’t new information to either of you. If you’d had any intention of initiating a romantic relationship, you would have done so from the start.’

Clint shrugged, slumped in his seat. He looked somewhat dejected, in spite of his own insistence that he wasn’t interested. ‘I mean, people already know I’m a freak,’ he said, picking at his thumbnail. ‘Woulda made more sense to let ‘em all know for sure. Finally got a real soulmate, and I’m not into her.’

Natasha knew they weren’t meant to have heard the last part.

‘Two of my three soul marks came from people who were trying to kill me when we marked each other,’ Natasha said, holding Coulson’s eye. ‘I refuse to let “destiny” tell me that I should give over my whole self to someone, just because they have marked me. Soulmates are _meaningless_.’

Coulson sighed. ‘Soulmates are _potential_ ,’ he said. ‘Destiny has nothing to do with it. And it’s not always potential for romance. I’d say that’s actually the lesser half of cases outside of families.’

‘Explain,’ Natasha demanded.

‘When you mark and are marked by someone,’ Coulson said, ignoring the bite in her tone, ‘it is the universe saying that you have the potential to be important to each other. That there is something between the two of you, a connection of some sort. Just because you’re connected to someone doesn’t mean you have to date them. It doesn’t even mean you have to _like_ them.’

He sighed and took his jacket off, laying it neatly on the table. He carefully unthreaded the cufflink at his right wrist and began rolling up his sleeve in precise folds. He rolled it above the elbow and then turned his arm so that they could both see the deep green mark etched on his forearm like a particularly violent bruise.

‘I was nineteen when I was given this,’ he said. His hands went to his collar and unbuttoned the first two buttons. He pulled his collar aside, far enough to reveal most of his shoulder. It bore a raised silver scar, running from his collarbone down towards his armpit. The end of it disappeared underneath his shirt. ‘The same man gave me this, ten years later.’

Clint sat up a little in her peripheral, and Natasha knew he was just as interested as she was.

‘What happened?’ Clint asked, brow furrowed.

Coulson began resituating his shirt, and gave them a wry smile. ‘He was in my unit in the Rangers. There were a few shared marks in the unit, but nothing this intense. Brass thought about separating us, but we weren’t interested in pursuing anything romantic. I thought that we were best friends; that the reason our marks were so vibrant was because we were platonic soulmates. I suppose we sort of were, at least at the time. Relationships of any sort take work, and when I joined SHIELD, we spent less and less time communicating. After a while, I realised that we’d sort of just… stopped talking altogether.’

Natasha caught Clint rubbing his chest, right over the mark on his sternum. They hadn’t actually spoken about their marks, and she wondered if he had ever caught her doing something similar with hers. She found herself wondering for the first time how he’d gotten the mark. It was the only one she’d seen on him, besides her own.

‘All this to say, the next time we met, we were on opposing sides,’ Coulson continued, clearing his throat. ‘I don’t know how he got caught up in any of it, and I don’t want to know. He made the wrong choice somewhere along the line, and then refused to change when he saw where that road led. He almost killed me, and he didn’t care about our marks. Because soul marks do not indicate what type of relationship that you will have, only that you will have _some_ type of relationship.’

‘You’re saying that we can choose,’ Natasha said, thoughtful. It made sense, as much as anything else in this strange new country did. It was not something she’d ever been told, back in Russia, but it had been repeated, over and over here in a dozen or more small ways.

‘Yes,’ Coulson said, ‘You can choose.’

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please let us know what you thought <3


End file.
